Wentworth knew there was not a moment to be lost. While some of the bo’ how doy were still trying to get a bullet into the slim target afforded by one eye and a bit of forehead of the man operating the chopper, Wentworth pulled himself to the roof. He felt the sting of hot metal in his shoulder, and the impact half swung him about.
Nothing better could have happened. Had he continued straight forward, he would have been riddled with bullets.
Jimmy Wentworth, the smiling young detective-sergeant of the Chinatown squad, had gone berserk. Here was a chance to get his hands on Kong Gai! He made one leap, notwithstanding the pain in his shoulder, and fell through what had been a skylight, but had been changed to a row of light slats, to give the bees air at times. The stairway to the roof was ten feet further along the roof. For a fraction of time something seemed to stay Wentworth’s fall — a black curtain of heavy silk, which had been used to cover the opening most of the time — and during it he managed to squirm about…
The silk ripped, and Wentworth fell, landing on hands and knees. His gun was up at the very time of impact, up, and blazing at a black-clad figure.
A shrill, sweet voice screamed, “Hold! Get him, snake-brothers! It is the white fool himself! Get him for Kong Gai!”
Wentworth’s heart stopped as his eyes and gun flashed up. He expected to die now, but if only he could get one shot at the King Cobra, and end his reign of terror! Then, so swift that it bit into Kong Gai’s last words, he heard the tapping sound of the chopper at work, searching out corners of the room in a vain effort to get the Venomous One.
Jimmy’s head began to work sanely again. He yelled, “Look out! The kids are somewhere here—”
“They’re behind you, sarge,” shouted the machine gun officer. “All’s O.K.,” and he alertly kept the muzzle of the chopper moving, ready to fire.
Despite this assurance, Wentworth waited. Would Kong Gai, from some clever point of concealment, kill him now? It could easily be done…
The sweet voice droned on, “Your eyes, oh white fool, I will tear out with my fingers! Your mouth I shall sew together, so you cannot destroy my sleep with your screams when we cut your body apart, inch by inch, and put little serpents to feed on you while you are still alive! The day will come soon! I could kill you now, but that is not my way of killing!”
A storm of bullets from the chopper ended the terrible promise. Then all was silent, save the hammering of axes and the stamping of feet.
For the three closed windows had not shown the room in which the kidnapped white children had been found, and when the officers smashed inside they found only a place of awful worship, with a great naked headless idol surrounded with crushed white flowers and many impaled dead bees, killed as sacrifices after they had served Kong Gai’s horrible torture of Whitcomb.
And a row of the little insects which, maddened, had stung Whitcomb to his curious death, was found about a sheet of paper before the idol. On the paper was a statement of the account of one Sam Gee Quong, who had lost several thousands of dollars in the stock market. And it was easy to guess that Quong was only another name for Kong Gai, and why the Venomous One had picked Whitcomb to kill, and his children to be held for ransom…
Jimmy Wentworth’s shrewd deductions had been close enough, and had led the riot squad to the building itself, if not to the inner room. The other room must have been the chamber in which the bees had been kept, and a search at once found a small, makeshift hive, with a volume of instructions on bee-keeping beside it. The constant burning of incense in the other room made it impossible to keep the bees there, save when it was intended to let them sting someone… Whitcomb.
Kong Gai had lost the children, and seven hatchetmen to boot. Four more were caught alive, but wounded. The remainder of the Brotherhood had escaped along some secret passage.
Captain Dunand felt that only Wentworth’s mad promptness in leaping to the roof in face of the ’binders’ bullets had prevented the Cobra Men from rushing off with the children. Apparently it had been Kong Gai’s command that the children be carried to the roof, and to some secret hiding place. That would be Kong Gai’s way, too — not taking any chance that the police might follow the children along his own secret tunnel deep into the dark places of Chinatown. He cared for his hide, did Kong Gai, and took no chances.
“If we’d nabbed Kong Gai, this would have been perfect,” commented the gray haired captain, as he surveyed the strange, terrible headless idol, supposed by the Chinese to protect those who kidnap children, and before which the Snake Brotherhood had bowed low.
“He was here,” said Wentworth quietly.
“See him?”
“No. Heard him.”
Captain Dunand said thoughtfully, “Say things, did he?”
“Some day,” Jimmy answered, “we’re coming face to face. Then… we’ll see.”
Kong Gai’s horrible laugh shrilled in the room.
“We’ll see!” screamed Kong Gai in English. “Yes! We’ll see!”
Try as they might, the riot squad could not find from what vantage point the fiendish Kong Gai had spoken. Once more the Evil One laughed, and then the room of the Headless Idol, with its crushed white blossoms and dead bees and streaming incense bowls, was as silent as death.
The Fighting Allens
by Dugal O’Liam
“Us Allens is all fighters!” Was their cry. And they proved it by making Carroll County, Va., a place of death and terror.
I
Back in 1911, before the greatest conflict in the world’s history had begun, Carroll County, Virginia, was peaceful, contented and, after its serene fashion, prosperous.
The wealthy people, and there were few of great wealth, lived among simple pleasures and the poor always were cared for by these rich to whom richness was a goodness for the less fortunate.
The county was a remote one and there were few of the irksome laws of a more enlightened community to chafe the proud souls of the meek and the mighty, alike. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you was law enough for the Carroll country.
Mightiest in this pastoral Utopia were the Allens. The Allens ruled the county, but they ruled it justly and, having amassed more than their share of the wealth of the country, used it to do good among others. None suffered in want so long as the Allens knew of it. Masterful and dominating they might have been, but they were the soul of charity and helpfulness.
The Allens were strictly products of Carroll County. Jeremiah Allen, a crusty fighter for the south in the Civil War, had founded the feudal chain. Now Floyd Allen, his son, a giant of a man, with a shaggy, snow white mane, carried it on.
It would be wrong to say the Allens were a power in Carroll County. They were Carroll County. Floyd Allen, with his great head and hulking shoulders and beady eyes set deep in a furrowed, weatherbeaten face, led. Jasper and Sidna and Garland, his brothers, and their sons and his sister’s sons, the Edwardses, followed.
They even went into the professions. There was a minister among them. He was Garland Allen. He was a fire-belching, hell-and-damnation soldier of the Cross, reviling sinners and scourging Beelzebub with a blacksnake whip technic. He battered his flock into line and kept them there because he was a fierce orator — and an Allen.
There was a lawyer, too. His name was Walter Allen, son of Jasper Allen. He went to the University of Virginia. Then he came back and did as his kinsmen did. He looked out for the Allens, then for the poor, then for the negroes, then for the Allens some more. He furnished the advice to the family, Big Floyd the leadership.